Magnetic cards such as an employee ID card and a security card have been used, to which a magnetic stripe is attached for data storage. In a known magnetic card reader for reading data of such magnetic cards, a user slides a magnetic card manually therethrough (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 02-308473).
This magnetic card reader includes a card travel groove. The card travel groove has: a card sliding surface for guiding an edge of a magnetic card through the magnetic card reader; a pair of parallel side walls across the card sliding surface, one of the side walls having an opening; and a magnetic head for reading the data recorded on the magnetic stripe of the magnetic card. The magnetic head is supported by the one of the side walls movably in the retreating direction from the card travel groove in a state that the contact surface between the magnetic head and the magnetic stripe is staying in the card travel groove. When a user slides a magnetic card along the card travel groove from one end through the other end thereof, the magnetic card makes contact with the magnetic head staying in the card sliding groove. This causes the magnetic card to push the magnetic head away from the card travel groove. The magnetic head then makes contact with the magnetic stripe to read the data thereof.
This magnetic card reader further includes a mechanism for removing static charge. In this mechanism, electric conductors are arranged across the magnetic head in the card sliding direction so that the electric conductors make the static electricity charged in the magnetic card flow into a grounding terminal. The mechanism prevents the static electricity charged in the magnetic card from flowing into the magnetic head, thereby preventing poor reading and the damage to the electronic circuits connected to the magnetic head.
However, in manually-operable magnetic card readers, the face opposite to the card sliding surface is left open like a slot so that the magnetic card is slid by a user along the card sliding groove. Furthermore, the magnetic head is always staying in the card travel groove. As a result, when a magnetic card is inserted into the card travel groove toward the card sliding surface, the magnetic head may be mechanically damaged by the magnetic card.